[DianaB]

Yes, that's what it means, Gina. Janet won't have to worry about mice if it stays around. It's certainly not big enough to eat the dogs! My husband takes snakes like that and puts them in his shop because with all of the grain off of the equipment he gets a lot of mice. He used to put them near the house too but he knows that I don't care for that!! I don't mind a snake but I don't like to be surprised by one.

Janet, here's what I found out about how to tell if it was a poisonous snake.......

Anal Plate Division
The anal plate on a snake is the last body scale on the underside or belly. One good identification characteristic is to determine if the snakes' anal plate has one scale or is it divided into two scales. You can not use the anal plate to tell the difference between poisonous and non- poisonous snakes. You can use the tail scales to determine if a snake is poisonous. The pit vipers (poisonous) have a single row of scales under the tail beginning at the vent. Near the end of the tail, the single row will change into a double row. All others have single tail scales.

If you look at the scales on the bottom end of the snake you can see that they're divided into two plates so your snake isn't poisonous. Good news!!